What makes articles cited highly? An analysis of top 100 highly cited articles on organizational citizenship behavior

Abstract

Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is amongst the main contributors to organizational performance and a significant outcome of various work-related behaviors. This study aims to evaluate the top 100 highly cited articles published on OCB in the Scopus database to assess the reasons why these articles are highly cited. A total of 3,096 articles on OCB, published from 1983-2018, were retrieved from the database, in which 100 highly cited articles were selected for further analysis. The findings revealed that a 40% contribution in the field of OCB research is due to these articles, and this contribution is expected to increase rapidly. Additionally, meta-analytical articles are frequently cited, followed by the review articles and then empirical research articles. Among various reasons, the highly cited articles are either pioneering studies in the field, proposing a new concept, or scale development studies. This study proposes important implications for practitioners and researchers.